Transactions

Transactions are used to handle and register operations with securities and cash, such as buying and selling assets, or depositing cash. Portfolio positions and cash amounts are calculated based on transactions. Once a transaction is accepted, portfolio positions and cash amounts are recalculated. You can create transactions directly (see Add transactions) or generate them based on trade orders (see Trade order execution). If you use FA accounting, bookkeeping entries are created based on transactions.

The FA Platform has a set of transaction types for cash and security transactions (see Transaction types for cash transactions and Transaction types for security transactions). The transaction types are specific to security types (for example: coupon payments are specific to debt instruments). Some transaction types are shared between several security types (for example: buying and selling are available for several security types).

Each transaction type has certain effects on the portfolio. For example, the cash effect of a buy transaction is to reduce the cash balance of the transaction account, and the cash effect of a sell transaction is to add to the cash balance of the transaction account. For more information about transaction effects, see Transaction types in FA Back reference.

A transaction includes costs, fees, and taxes which you specify either as a percentage or an amount (see Fees and Portfolios view in FA Back reference). The effects defined for the transaction type determine if the costs, fees, and taxes are added to the transaction amount or subtracted from it. You can also extract the costs and taxes into separate transactions, for example, to keep track of costs in a separate portfolio (see Extract costs and taxes as separate transactions).

You can also import transactions in files (see File formats for importing transactions and trade orders in FA Back reference).